marvelous mud...

LOL. Now that's a little bit of dirt on her shoes. The her in this case is my site mate Juliet. Yesterday we went for a hike. We came to a stream and were devising our best crossing options. We settled on stepping to the little island of rocks in the middle of the stream (you can probably guess where this is going). Juliet was closer to that direction so she went first. In retrospect I am VERY happy about that. I was wearing my band new, bright white running shoes, by the way. She took one step onto the island and realized that it was not as dry as it appeared to be. As she began to sink, she took a step with her other foot and that foot began to sing. I thought I was going to lose her there for a minute. She was stepping back on what we thought was the solid river bank and you guessed it, not so solid after all. In fact, with taht step, the earth swallowed all of her foot and even up past her ankle.

Eventually we found a good place to cross. we ended up just backtracking. isn't that always the case? Sidenote, we didn't really know exactly where we were but as we climbed the "trail" back up, we realized it was the same trail that we used to begin this little trek.

We stopped by my house first. I offered the use of our hose and barrel of water to Juliet to clean her shoes. I, being such a great guy, even lent her my sandles and some socks. Also being a nice guy, i picked up one of her mud caked shoes to show her where to clean them. Oh NO! my host mother was not gonna let that happen. she started talking excitedly and i knew she was not happy about something. I kinda suspected what the commotion was about. Throught the English speaking daughter, I was told that a man cannot wash the shoes of a woman. She is to wash her own shoes (even though she was a guest). So poor Juliet went to the corner of the yard and washed her slightly dirty shoes all alone. I on the other hand, with my still nearly spotless shoes, sat on the porth and talked with my host family. It was a little weird, kinda like she was a servant girl. I like being cared for but I also like having the option to help when I want. Thank goodness I haven't tried to do the dishes yet. Kinda crazy.

I am off to a football match in Elbasan (the big city). Everyone is going crazy here because the team won in the national league. It's the first time since 1984. There should be some good craziness after the game too.